ࡱ> Z\YQ@ 0>bjbj͘ .^6?  "JJJJT$"&,n+++++++$-R/l+^ ^ ^ ++$$$^ P+$^ +$$%')( ࿕'J"<'++0&,',R0#R0)(""R0)(|=$ ++""  D$"" The Good Mr. Nabokov Lolitas Father Neglects the nymphets for Pushkin and Robbe-Grillet An interview given to LExpress in Paris November 5, 1959 Translated by Maurice Couturier (Nabokov must have given this interview between late October 1959, when he came back from Geneva to attend the reception Gallimard staged in his honour, and November 4, when he gave a lecture in Cambridge. Its very unlikely that he had the opportunity to revise it before publication; hence the spontaneous tone and the awkward syntax at times.) LExpress: In France, as everywhere else, Lolita has had a tremendous success. Did you expect that? Vladimir Nabokov: When an author writes a book, he has a certain vision of that book. Success is part of that vision: if one writes a book, it is with the hope that it will be published. If it is to be published, it is with a view that it be read. And well read. Therefore that it be successful. Success goes hand in hand with the book. It is part of the book itself. I must say that Lolita is my favourite book. Among the more than ten books I wrote in Russian and in English, it is the one I prefer. I told myself: there are many good readers around the world, it will be read. But I didnt expect it to come out in a limited, restricted edition, reserved for a few men of letters. I also thought it would be banned in the United States. That it was banned in England and Australia was to be expected, of course. But that it be authorized in the United States and censored in France, that is the paradox. - That has been mended since. V. Nabokov: Yes, and well mended. - What was the nature of Lolitas success in the United States? V. Nabokov: Artistic and philosophical. It was not a succs de scandale. Curiously, the Americans didnt consider Lolita as a book not to be put into everybodys hands. Young people read that as they read anything else. After, they would come to see me, students and school kids, and would say to me: Here is a copy of Lolita. I would like to offer it to Dad for Easter, to Mum for Christmas; can you sign it, Mr. Nabokov? I would decline to sign the copies but it is the effort that matters. Afterwards Dad would read and would say nothing to me. On the contrary: some religious groups asked me to give lectures on Lolita. Which I didnt give. And I have received letters from readers everywhere in the world who have enjoyed the book and who speak of it with subtlety. - For many of your readers, Lolita has been considered, the anecdote set aside, as a very moving love story. Is it what you meant? V. Nabokov: There is in Lolita something full, full like an egg, harmonious. It seems to me that a writer sees his book as a certain design which he wishes to reproduce, and it seems to me that I have reproduced that design comparatively well. The contours are there, the details, too. There was a moment when I said to myself: There it is, thats all, I cant add anything to it. Perhaps I eliminated a few pages here and here; a few overlong passages. But the book is here now. I struggled over it for years. I had other things to do: my lectures at Cornell University, and another book, my scholarly work on Pushkin which took me ten years (I was about to say a hundred years). It was only during vacations that I wrote Lolita. My wife and I would travel around the United States, all over the United States, stopping in motels. We went butterfly-hunting in the Rocky Mountains and when it rained, or the weather was grey, if I wasnt tired, I would sit in our car parked near the cabin at the motel and would write. I would write one page, two pages, and if it went well, I would continue. - You wrote in your car? V. Nabokov: Yes, I write on cards which we call index cards in our country. I write with a pencil. My dream would be to have a pencil always well-sharpened. The first draft, I rewrite it with a pen afterwards on ordinary paper. Then my wife types it out on a typewriter. I dont know how to type. I cant do a thing with my hands. Not even drive a car. - Didnt you mention that you hunt butterflies? V. Nabokov: Indeed, I do, thats the only thing! When I start dismantling, dismembering a butterfly in order to examine it under a microscope, thats when I suddenly grow very delicate hands, slender fingers, and then I can do anything I like with my fingers. But its the only thing. Afterwards, I am again all thumbs, as the English put it. - Do you abundantly correct your books? V. Nabokov: All the time. Thats the reason why I first write with a pencil: one can take a rubber and patch up things. Writing doesnt come to me in a continuous stream. I find it hard, I experience great difficulties. Writing a letter, even a postcard, takes me hours. I dont know why. - Why the name Lolita? V. Nabokov: It started with Dolors. It is a very beautiful name, Dolors. A name with a long veil, a name with liquid eyes. The diminutive of Dolors is Lola, and the diminutive of Lola, Lolita. Do you know where there is a Dolors? It has just occurred to me: in Monte-Cristo. I read it when I was a little boy. - The theme developed in Lolita, hasnt it been in your books for a long time? V. Nabokov: Thats what the critics say: I have little girls here, very young girls there, perhaps somewhat perverse I dont know. I am about to publish a book of souvenirs with Gallimard, and there is a child love in it. I speak about a little girl I happened to know on the beach in Biarritz. I was ten, she was nine. It was a very platonic love. Absurd to see the first Lolita there. - Did you invent the word nymphet? V. Nabokov: Yes, I did. There was already the word nymph. And Ronsard, who likes Latin diminutives, used the word nymphette in a sonnet. But not in the sense I used it. For him it was a nymph who was gentle. - Yours isnt, to be sure. You were a bit harsh on Lolita. V. Nabokov: Yes. But she is also a very moving character. Towards the end of the book, reader and author take pity on her, on that poor child who was sacrificed on the altar of the motels! Its very sad. She married that poor guy, that Schiller, and, at that very moment, Humbert Humbert understands that he loves her and that its genuine love this time. She is no longer pretty, no longer graceful, she is about to have a baby, and thats when he loves her. It is the great love scene. He says to her: Leave your husband and come with me, and she doesnt understand. She is still his Lolita and he loves her with a very tender love. No longer with that morbid passion. And then she dies. Already in the introduction I mentioned one Mrs. Schiller who died in a little hamlet in Alaska, Grey Star. That was she, but as the reader doesnt know she will get married and be called Schiller, he doesnt understand. Yet, it is there already: planted, as the Americans phrase it. Lolita is already dead since the book has been published and that it was a condition. All that cost me tears of blood. All those little details. It is very difficult to write a book that holds together from beginning to end. - Are you writing anything else at the moment? V. Nabokov: Yes, a formidable work, the one I mentioned about Pushkin. Five volumes. Its just finished and in the publishers hands in New York. Random House and Morning Press. Now, I am going to rest and chat with you a little, and then I will write another book. Another novel, I think. - On what subject? V. Nabokov: No, I cant tell you. If I begin to talk about such things, they die. Its like a metamorphosis; it doesnt happen if you watch it. - People have greatly admired the style in which Lolita is written. Do you think your perfect knowledge of three languages, Russian, French and English, has anything to do with it? V. Nabokov: I like words. Yes, I have a good knowledge of all three languages, that troika, those three horses which have always been harnessed to my vehicle. My first maid, my nurse, was English. Then I had a French governess. Meanwhile I was speaking Russian of course. Then seven or eight English governesses and a Swiss teacher. - The education of a prince? V. Nabokov: An education la Rousseau, rather. We spoke the three languages at home. But at the dinner table, when the three waiters were in attendance, we spoke French or English so that they would not understand. - Is it indiscreet to ask you in which language you think? V. Nabokov: Do we think in a particular language? One rather thinks in images. It was the mistake Joyce made, it seems to me. The difficulty he wasnt totally able to overcome. Towards the end of Ulysses, in Finnegans Wake, there is a gush of words, without any punctuation, which tries to express the interior language. But people dont think like that. In words, yes, but also in ready-made phrases, in clichs. And also in images, the word dissolves in images, and then the image engenders the following word. - What difference in the usage would you suggest between these three languages, these three instruments? V. Nabokov: Nuances. If you take for example the French word framboise, it is a scarlet colour, a very red colour. In English, the word raspberry is rather colourless, with perhaps a touch of brown or purplish. A rather cold colour. In Russian, it is a flash of light, malino, the word has bright associations, it has gaiety, there are bells ringing. How can you translate? - In Lolita, you wrote a rather violent satire of America. V. Nabokov: Maybe. But it is a mock-up America and I could have assembled another one. I created an America I like, strange, amusing, and I arranged for my characters to wander around its gardens and mountains, which I imitated or rather invented. As for the ideas I granted on that Mr. Humbert Humbert, they are comparatively neutral. They are the ideas of an average professor. Not mine. - Indeed, he seems deeply shocked by the scandalous dimension of his adventure. Whereas the author himself seems to stand comparatively aloof, to adopt an ironical view towards the drama Humbert Humbert concocts from his relationship with Lolita. Is that correct? V. Nabokov: I wont take sides. Its his business. He dies of it. One can say: in fact, here is the moral, the guardian of moral which comes around at the end of the book. But also he had to die of it. Otherwise, there wouldnt have been a book. There is more to it: Humbert Humbert was unfortunate: he didnt happen to be where he should have been. In a state like Texas or Mississippi, one can marry a girl of eleven. But, that, my poor chap didnt know. - How come you dont say so? V. Nabokov: Had I said it, there wouldnt be a book! - Your personal ideas about America, what are they? V. Nabokov: It is the country in which I was able to breathe a lung full. - Didnt you ever have to suffer from its materialism? V. Nabokov: Not at all. Its like everywhere else, there are boring people and interesting people, philistines and decent people. Every society is materialistic. People already were when they wrote with a goose quill and ink-blotting powder. - Will you go back to Russia? V. Nabokov: No. Never. Not to Russia. Russia, its over. It was a dream I made. I invented Russia. Things turned out very badly. Its over. - Do you read a lot? V. Nabokov: Yes. Too much. Two or three books a day. And then I forget everything. - Do you read novels? V. Nabokov: For that work on Pushkin, I reread all of French literature up until Chateaubriand and all of English literature up until Byron. I read fast, but it took me a long time. La Nouvelle Hlose for example. I read it in three days. I was almost dead afterwards, but I read it. I also read labb Prvost. Manon Lescaut is very beautiful. You were mentioning love stories: Manon Lescaut is one of those books which gives you a shiver, you know? That frisson A little note of violin, sanglots longs - Do you think one still writes novels nowadays? V. Nabokov: There is Proust - I had in mind the contemporary writers. V. Nabokov: I was twenty when Proust died. It was in my days. But take for example Robbe-Grillets La Jalousie: that is a beautiful love story. One of the most poetic books I know and it gives you the kind of shiver we were mentioning. - Really? V. Nabokov: Yes, the most beautiful romance since Proust. But lets stop talking about the contemporaries, poor things, they are not dead. - Yes, we mustnt kill them in advance. Did you like Gide? V. Nabokov: Not too much. There are very good things in Les Caves du Vatican. But in the end, its very boring. He had no idea what life is like. He doesnt know a thing about the world. His description of the little Arabian boys is perhaps not too bad A certain kind of candied fruits - Do you ever go to the theatre? V. Nabokov: I have a very good knowledge of Scribes theatre in which one dusts the furniture in Act One And I greatly liked Lenormands plays when I was young. Are they still being performed? - No. V. Nabokov: Its over, over! It was so pretty, so poetic. I dont often go to the theatre. Last time was in 1932. - And to the movies? V. Nabokov: There is television. Watching a Hitchcock movie here or there, its pretty much the same thing, isnt it? - Do you take an interest in the movie that is about to be made from your book? V. Nabokov: I know there will be a very pretty Lolita, fully developed. But thats all. - For what purpose have you come to Europe? V. Nabokov: To rest and catch up with friends and members of my family. I have a sister I havent seen since 1935 and who lives in Geneva, I am going to see her. I also have a brother in Brussels. - In what year did you leave Europe? V. Nabokov: In 1940, on the S.S. Champlain. A charming ship which zigzagged across the ocean, to avoid submarines probably. It was its last voyage. It was sunk later on. A pity. - What has changed in Europe in twenty years? V. Nabokov: The cars. Thats about all. And also there are more bathrooms.  A reference to Verlaines Chanson dautomne, of course. \s} 2 C P R      ? ЯsgU"h~ahO$5CJ\aJmH sH hO$CJaJmH sH hXCJaJmH sH hCJaJmH sH hTnCJaJmH sH hLgCJaJmH sH hhCJaJmH sH hhhO$CJaJmH sH "hO$56CJ\]aJmH sH hO$5CJ\aJmH sH h 55CJ\aJmH sH "hO$hO$5CJ\aJmH sH ]  z $F[t$a$gdG<$a$gde$a$gd,?$a$gd^$a$gdTn$a$gdO$$a$gdX$a$gdh$a$gdO$>>? 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